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Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Ex-good government head Yorac passes away
MANILA -- Feisty graft-buster and former Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) chair Haydee Yorac finally succumbed to a longtime disease and died of kidney failure at a hospital in Chicago, family-designated spokesman and Supreme Court (SC) Justice Adolfo Azcuna announced Tuesday.
Yorac, 64, died around 6:10 a.m. (Manila time) Tuesday at the St. Francis Hospital in Chicago, Illinois where she had been confined for a week for treatment of her cancer of the uterus. She was survived by her four sisters and mother.
Azcuna, who had been Yorac's law partner, said most of her family members and relatives were at her bedside when she died.
"I'm very sad to inform you that my friend and former law partner died this morning from complications of cancer of the uterus," said Azcuna, a long-time friend of Yorac.
She had stroke in the past and was later found to have been afflicted with cancer of the uterus since 2002.
Azcuna said the Yorac family called him up shortly after the former PCGG chairwoman's death and was asked to speak in their behalf. She had quit government service last April.
Yorac and Azcuna had been partners for eight years before she joined the anti-graft body in 2001. Their friendship, however, dated back to 1962 when they took the bar together.
"She was from UP (University of the Philippines) and I'm from Ateneo. She's a great public servant and a great loss to public service," he said, adding that Yorac flew to the US three months ago for chemotherapy. She was supposed to return home this month.
"The news was that she was already well and would come home soon. But she was taken to the ICU (intensive care unit) again," he said.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's administration sent its condolences to the family of Yorac, whose last stint in government was as chairperson of the PCGG.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said they were saddened by Yorac's death.
"We did not know that it was that serious and this morning about three hours ago we got news of her passing away. So we condole with the family of chairman Haydee Yorac," he said in a press conference at Annabel's in Tomas Morato in Quezon City.
Justice Minita Chico-Nazario, a classmate of Yorac in law school, remembers Yorac "as someone with an indomitable spirit during Martial Law years, and someone with faithful adherence to the Constitution."
"She never gave up. She put up a very strong fight against the rule of oppression. I think she was even incarcerated for so many months because of her unbending spirit. She was the perfect embodiment of integrity, honesty and efficiency as a lawyer. You can't easily corrupt her," she said.
Nazario recalled that during their student days, Yorac was one of the brightest in the class that she placed sixth in the 1962 Bar examinations.
"Sabay kaming nag- (We took the) Bar together and we were classmates throughout the four-year course in the UP College of Law. We were also together in the early years of our professional lives when we first worked at the Pasig Regional Trial Court," she said.
As a friend, she said Yorac had often been harshly perceived as a feisty, brutally frank person but what others did not know was that she had a caring and compassionate heart. "Deep within her is a very compassionate and warm person. I can attest to that personally."
Nazario disclosed that the last time she had a talk with Yorac was last year at the canteen in the UP College of Law.
"She called me up and we met she was very much concerned with the way things are going now in our country. Up to the end of her days, she was always thinking of the welfare of the country," Nazario said.
Last August 2004, Yorac was among the recipients of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award, Asia's equivalent to the Nobel Prize, for excellent government service.
It was during her term as head of the PCGG that the commission was able to recover some P684 million in Swiss bank deposits linked to former President Ferdinand Marcos and won favorable court decisions on assets of the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) and San Miguel Corporation (SMC).
Aside from her stint as head of the PCGG, she had also been appointed as commissioner of the Commission on Elections. (ECV/Sunnex)
(September 14, 2005 issue)
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